Lake Forest Competes at Chicago's Phoenix Fall Classic
Forester women place third, men seventh

Becky Shaak

Alex Marks

Stamen Tintikov

Samantha Gardner

Freshman Becky Shaak (Vienna, Va./James Madison) accounted for the Foresters only victory at the meet when she touched the wall first in the 500-freestyle. Her time of 5:09.25 was better than the national meet B-cut qualifying time and ranks her second in team history in that event.

Freshmen Alex Marks (Oregon, Ill./Oregon) and Stamen Tintikov (Chicago Ill./Lane Tech) were the first from Lake Forest's men's team to reach the finals in an event. They placed fourth and sixth in the 100-breaststroke and posted times of 1:00.97 and 1:03.16, respectively.

The next event was the 200-backstroke and freshman Amber Kerrigan (Phoenix, Ariz./Xavier College Prep) finished sixth with a time of 2:18.53. Fellow freshman Kelsey Hoeper (Medford, Ore./South Medford) was sixth in the 100-freestyle in 55.40 seconds and sophomore Ellen Stoehr (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) placed seventh in the 200-butterfly in 2:15.98.

Lake Forest had three of the top four divers in the meet. Freshman Samantha Gardner (Breckenridge, Colo./Summit) was the runner-up in both diving events with 317.70 points off the 3-meter board and 358.50 in the 1-meter competition. Classmate Chandler Foster (Ypsilanti, Mich./Mercy) and sophomore Jade Perkins (Denver, Colo./JK Mullen) were third and fourth in 3-meter diving with scores of 312.85 and 307.15, respectively. They switched places off the 1-meter board where Perkins tallied 332.20 points and Foster 326.30.

Shaak also reached the finals of the 400-individual medley, where she placed fourth in 4:49.50. She also finished seventh in the 200-breaststroke in 2:35.42.

Marks and Tintikov made their second finals appearance in the men's 200-breaststroke where Marks placed third in 2:13.97 and Tintikov finished sixth in 2:19.72.

Four Foresters reached the finals of the 100-backstroke. On the women's side Kerrigan placed third in 1:03.09, freshman Meghan Mason (Colorado Springs, Colo./Sand Creek) was fifth in 1:06.57, and sophomore Jennifer Steege (Hudson, Wis./Visitation) finished eighth in 1:09.68. senior Mike Mackin (Berwyn, Ill./Fenwick) was eighth in the men's race with a time of 55.62 seconds.

A pair of Lake Forest women found themselves among the fastest eight in the meet in the 50-freestyle. Hoeper posted her second sixth-place finish of the meet with a time of 25.39 seconds and sophomore Emily Watts (Danville, Ind./Danville Community) was eighth in 25.83.

"The team performed well at a very competitive invitational," noted Lake Forest head coach Vadim Tashlitsky '00. "We swam numerous season best times and recorded a couple of lifetime best performances. I think we are on track to race well at our next invite to finish out a strong first semester."

The Foresters will be back in action in two weekends (December 4-5) at Carthage College's TYR/CollegeSwimming.com Classic. The competition begins at 10:00 a.m. both days.